"Bloody liberty," shouted the woman pushing her baby past the boarded-up perimeter of what was, until last week, Preston library in north-west London.

Her sentiments at its closure were echoed in the graffiti spreading across the sheets of timber. "My children need this library. You are killing the future!!!" read one. "Hitler burnt books. Brent council make sure you don't get them in the first place," hissed another.

A little to the left, close to a handful of protesters clutching yellow placards, a plaintive message in a child's writing said simply: "Yore supposed to make things better!"

While their lawyers were preparing to lodge an appeal, supporters of two of the six condemned libraries were taking matters into their own hands on Monday to make sure books and computers were not removed from the premises in the meantime.

Daniel Ridley-Kitts, who described the closure of Preston library as the "fundamentally flawed decision of a misguided Brent council", was outside the library when a van turned up to begin clearing it out. He and his fellow Friends of Preston Library managed to stop the council carting off the computers. "A van turned up at eight this morning to take away the computers," he said. "I asked them not to. They phoned their line manager and were very reasonable and then they went away."

Geraldine Cooke, a publisher just back from the Frankfurt Book Fair, stood close by, honking defiantly on a red horn given to her in Germany by a US erotica publisher in a gesture of intellectual solidarity. Every now and then, her honks were answered by passing cars.

Cooke, who, along with her fellow campaigners, has been organising petitions and raising £30,000 for a legal fighting fund, said she had no plans to give up the battle. "I think we'll do it for as long as it takes, even though we're not many people down here," she said, nodding at the seven other protesters. "There's no doubting the passion of the people here."

Another protester, who didn't want to give her name, said the council had underestimated the strength of people's feelings on the matter. "My cousins come here to study," she said. "And if they're not studying here, they'll be roaming around the streets. It really does annoy me. Growing up here, I know a lot of the elderly people here and they like to come here. It's not just books, it's newspapers, it's people. It's like a little book club for the elderly."

A similar, albeit more high-profile, vigil has been under way down the road at Kensal Rise library for a few days. Campaigners have been taking it in turns to occupy the entrance to the site since the high court upheld the council's decision last Thursday. Sustained by fury – not to mention the odd cup of Earl Grey laced with Spanish brandy – they have resisted the council's attempts to board up the library and remove its stock. To underline their point, they have set up their own lending library: a few cardboard boxes of donated books where Dick Francis and Maeve Binchy lie spine-to-spine with Ayn Rand.

"The speed and ruthlessness of the council has just been absolutely shocking," said Margaret Bailey, a protest organiser. "But the feeling here is that spirits are incredibly high: if you come here at two in the morning, there are lots of people. I think there were about 35 people here between five and eight this morning because we heard rumours that the council was going to come."

Pam Clarke, whose family has used the library for 25 years, said she and others were doing their best to maintain a round-the-clock presence. But how long was she prepared to spend wrapped on a chair outside the library on cold, blustery autumn nights? "As long as it takes. Everything has to take a back seat to this. Everything." Ann John, the leader of Brent council, said she was "dismayed but not surprised" to see protesters gathering outside the libraries.

"I understand the strength of feeling among those that wanted these libraries to remain open but visitor numbers for all six of the closed libraries have continued to dwindle steadily in the past months, despite the high-profile campaign to keep them open," she said.

"I'd like to also remind Brent's critics that the decision to close these libraries wasn't a knee-jerk reaction to save money, but one that was taken based on visitor numbers and the state of the buildings themselves."

Her arguments did not impress Margaret Bailey, who predicted serious social consequences if the decision was not reversed. "If [the library] goes, it'll be terrible," she said. "There's nothing else – absolutely nothing else.

"This ward has the highest illiteracy rate in London, so it makes no sense to close this unless you want young people on the streets rioting; they're doing everything to facilitate that."